Donald De Line

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Zak Penn, Donald De Line and Kristie Macosko Krieger at the Hollywood premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' 'Ready Player One' held at the Dolby Theatre. Based on Ernest Cline’s bestseller of the same name, the film has been directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke and Mark Rylance - Hollywood, California, United States - Monday 26th March 2018

Donald De Line at the European premiere of 'Ready Player One' held at the Vue West End in London. Directed by Steven Spielberg, the film is a sci-fi adventure based on Ernest Cline's best-selling book of the same name and stars Olivia Cooke, Tye Sheridan, Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg - London, United Kingdom - Monday 19th March 2018

Donald De Line and Amy Pascal at the 2018 Producers' Guild Awards (PGA) where the coveted Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures went to Guillermo del Toro and J. Miles Dale for 'The Shape of Water' - Los Angeles, California, United States - Sunday 21st January 2018

This is only technically a remake of the iconic 1979 film starring movie icons George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg. While that film was a bittersweet comedy about old age, this one has a lot less on its mind. Instead, it goes for more populist joys like slapstick and smiley banter, all based on the A-list casting of present-day icons Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin. At least they give it some oomph.

It all starts when Joe (Caine) is notified by his bank that his mortgage is overdue, but this is only because they tripled the interest rate. And the situation becomes even more desperate when the company where he worked for 40 years is sold to a multinational, which liquidates the pension fund, leaving Joe and his pals Willie and Albert (Freeman and Arkin) in serious trouble. So Joe hatches a crazy scam to steal the money back from the bank, and Willie and Albert go along with it. They get advice from low-level criminal Jesus (John Ortiz) to work out the details. Meanwhile, Willie is undergoing treatment for kidney failure, and his age has left him far down the donor list. And Albert finally gives in to the flirtatious advances of amorous shop-clerk Annie (Ann-Margret).

Spirited and very funny, this movie should actually be rather disturbing since it's a true story about torture and murder. But director Michael Bay is so slick with the action and comedy elements that he lulls audiences to sleep, entertaining us with events that really should send chills down our spines. So the movie feels rather tasteless when you begin to think about it.

Wahlberg stars as Daniel, an obsessive bodybuilder in 1990s Miami who works as a personal trainer at a local gym. But he's becoming increasingly annoyed by the fact that his clients are much wealthier than he is. So he convinces his steroid-addicted colleague Adrian (Mackie) to help him kidnap a customer (Shalhoub) and steal his fortune. Realising that they need some help, they enlist born-again ex-con Paul (Johnson) in their plan. But none of them is very smart, and the kidnapping goes badly wrong from the start. Still, they manage to steal quite a lot before a tenacious private detective (Harris) notices something isn't right.

For a story that deals with such intensely serious themes, this is an oddly broad comedy. Bay never even tries to find dark irony here; he just focusses on how stupid these criminals are, convinced that they are as cool as the characters from their favourite movies and eerily unbothered by the fact that they are inflicting pain and even death on people for their own greedy ends. The actors inhabit the roles with a disarming naivete, so we can't help but laugh at their idiotic actions. Wahlberg plays Daniel as a muscle-head so focussed on getting what he wants that he doesn't notice the carnage in his wake; Mackie at least gives Adrian a sense of self-doubt, plus some comical romance (with scene-stealer Wilson); and Johnson has a tricky role as a religious guy with a weakness for drugs and women.

There's no real reason for this live action/animation hybrid version of the classic cartoon besides the fact that digital effects allowed them to do it.

But at least it's rather undemanding good fun while it lasts.

At Jellystone Park, Yogi Bear and his sidekick Boo Boo (voiced by Aykroyd and Timberlake) drive Ranger Smith (Cavanagh) crazy with their picnic-stealing antics. But just as they reach a kind of agreement, things are complicated by the arrival of nature expert Rachel (Faris), who wants to make a documentary about the talking bears. Meanwhile, the local mayor (Daly) decides to sell the park to logging companies to pay the city deficit, luring Smith's sidekick Jones (Miller) in as an accomplice. It's going to take a miracle to save the park.

It's difficult to imagine a more outrageously camp movie than this glittery romp, and fortunately there's a sense that the cast and crew understand this.

By never taking their ludicrous plot seriously, they've made a true guilty pleasure.

Fed up with dead-end Iowa, Ali (Aguilera) heads for Hollywood. Despite having no experience or training, she's sure she can make it as a singer-dancer. After a series of rejections, she stumbles upon the Burlesque Lounge on Sunset, run by jaded diva Tess (Cher) with the help of her long-suffering buddy Sean (Tucci). Ali charms sexy barman Jack (Gigandet) into a barmaid job, while keeping her sights on the stage. And she's also wooed by Marcus (Dane), a developer who's trying to buy the financially strapped club.

Some people take their jobs way too seriously. Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogan), head of security at a local shopping mall, is one of those people. Thus, when management receives reports about illicit activity occurring on the premises, he takes them very personally. Beside the complaints about a pervert exposing himself to women in the parking lot, after-hours robberies are taking place on a regular basis. Ronnie alerts his security staff to be on high alert, but all of their brains put together couldn't solve a three-letter crossword puzzle.

When a cosmetics counter employee named Brandi (Anna Faris) becomes the pervert's latest victim, management calls a police detective (Ray Liotta) to help catch him. Ronnie is livid that his supervisors have outsourced an investigative team. He feels that he's perfectly capable of handing the case, and would love to prove it to Brandi to win her affection. He quickly discovers, however, that Brandi's "affection" isn't difficult to win.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to come up with the plot for a romantic comedy. After all, most follow the same basic recipe: boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back, the end. I Love You, Man was born when someone tossed a gimmick into the formula. The film doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it does turn the ingredients upside down, and it's quite refreshing.

Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is a mild-mannered Los Angeles real estate agent, and his girl is Zooey Rice (Rashida Jones). They have been dating for less than a year, but are madly in love. As the movie opens, Peter proposes, and Zooey accepts. Immediately, she calls her friends to celebrate. This makes Peter realize that he has no buddies to call; he doesn't even have anyone to be his best man.

Without a Paddle: The year's most ingenious title. It speaks volumes about the creek we're headed up before the film even starts. Paddle finds its roots in Deliverance, though this updated version clearly has no intention to follow the gravity of its master. To compare the two would be shameful.

Three childhood buddies, now in their early thirties, have reunited to mourn the death of a close childhood friend. Since their last encounter ten years prior, each man has taken his life in a different direction. Dan (Seth Green) is a doctor with a laundry-list of phobias, Jerry (Matthew Lillard) is an executive with a fear of commitment, and Tom (Dax Shepard) is a lying barfly who refuses to grow up and act his age.

You would think it'd be a sure bet that a drama with the title Domestic Disturbance would at least be better than its laughable name. But frankly, Domestic Disturbance may as well be called Movie Theater Disturbance. Or, more specifically, Cookie Cutter Clichéd Thriller. This retread of barely suspenseful nail-biters from ten years past (think Pacific Heights and the like) is one lackluster sleepwalk of a movie.

An obvious John Travolta vehicle, it features the healthy-looking, tanned, hit-or-miss star as Frank Morrison, a loving but divorced father who is earthy enough to build wooden boats for a living, and honest enough to not charge a profitable fee. He's nice. He loves his young son Danny (a natural Matthew O'Leary), and is dealing with his ex-wife's (Meet the Parents' Teri Polo) marriage to rich investor Rick Barnes (a stale Vince Vaughn, playing a whole other kind of psycho).

We're almost halfway through 2004, the unofficial Year of the Remake, and we've yet to encounter anything worthwhile from the rehash bin. Here's another case in point: Frank Oz's update of The Stepford Wives, a bitter little throwaway that manages to come off as even worse than the original.

The 1975 Stepford (and Ira Levin's book) was a piece of Americana that was so influential it became part of American slang. It unfortunately isn't a very good movie: If anyone can even remember how it ends, I dare you to e-mail me.